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Cranfield expertise could drive forward green shift

Written by Sam Fountain

Wednesday, 05 March 2008

The Lifecar in Cranfield's testing facility Expertise at Cranfield University could be driving forward the world’s move toward green cars, providing high-end testing capabilities which could attract industry investment to the region. The University’s recent work with British marque, Morgan on its Lifecar – a zero-emission sports car currently on display at the Geneva Motor Show – is just the tip of the iceberg, just one of a number of projects looking at ways to improve hydrogen-powered and hybrid vehicles. Cranfield University’s Department of Automotive engineering has been hard at work with innovators from across the country on alternative drive vehicles, in addition to being part of the UK consortium involved with the Lifecar, which also included Oxford University, OSCar Automotive and QinetiQ. As well as offering testing facilities and capabilities applicable all the way through the design process, the Cranfield team – led by Prof Nick Vaughan and Dr James Marco – provides companies developing alternative-fuelled vehicles with a ‘power management strategy,’ an interface between the driver and the powertrain hardware, or engine to the less engineering minded. Vaughan described the department’s work as an intermediary between the driver and the engine’s control systems. “It makes decisions for the powertrain hardware, such as when the driver wants to go faster, where do you get the energy from? Energy stored in on-board batteries, or fuel cells? And when slowing the vehicle, what do you do to recover braking energy, do you use conventional friction brakes?” In addition to the Lifecar, which is powered by a combination of fuel cells and ultra-capacitors, the department is also working on what it calls ‘more conventional’ hybrid vehicles. It has been doing work with the Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium – an umbrella organisation which looks after the interests of companies in the battery industry, trying to centralise and automate the research of a number of organisations through the world “We’re working on a Vauxhall Combo van, adding an electric drive independently on the rear wheel – it’s a front wheel drive vehicle – powered by an advanced lead acid battery,” Vaughan said. “Interestingly, there is another vehicle, the Honda Insight, which has managed more than 100,000 miles on a lead acid battery as a hybrid vehicle. “It uses a new type of technology, called VRLA (valve regulated lead acid) – we’re a partner in the project, we did some evaluation work on it using some of our test facilities, but we’re not involved directly in the technology itself. “There is another fuel cell project that we’re working on, with the Hugo Spowers Group which is similar in some ways, but an urban operation, a city car.” Marco explained the University’s role in the numerous collaborations it is involved with: “Our work tends not to be involved directly in the technology as such, but rather in the vehicle intergration of that technology, rather than the developing of the components themselves. There are plenty of opportunities and ways of hybridising vehicles.” When asked about the possibility of creating a spin-out company from the department, the pair are limited in their enthusiasm for personal involvement. “It’s certainly a possibility. There are one or two other people working in that area. We tend to work with others, as sort of a partner in the consortium, but it could be an option,” they said. The two feel that the work conducted at the University has had a positive effect for its students, who are able to participate in some of the work. “The work that we do has an impact on some of the MS teaching that we’re involved in as well – it spreads into the students,” said Vaughan. “It reflects in some of the teaching content, we have access to information and equipment that we probably wouldn't have otherwise, and for some, their project work is directly related to some of the work that we’re doing.” The University also launched a new MS program last year in Auto Technology Management. The MS, which is a part-time program geared toward mid and early mid-career engineers working in the industry, has been attracting quite a lot of interest, said the pair. “There’s an increased level of credibility and exposure which comes from being involved in this type of project,” said Marcos. That exposure can only help the department, where activity has been growing rapidly in the last few years. Also on the horizon is a short course in hybrid vehicles, which would capitalise on the work that the Vaughan and Marcos have done and attempt to feed that knowledge back into the local industry much quicker than a masters course or specific research program could. The short course can tentatively be expected to begin its first run in Autumn 2008. “I suspect it’s first running would probably be in the autumn of this year. We’d like to keep quiet about industry interest for the moment, but there a quite a lot of major OEMs in the UK,” said Vaughan. Set as favorite Bookmark Email This Hits: 331 Trackback(0) TrackBack URI for this entry Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Write comment This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.

 

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